1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention may relate to a mobile terminal. Mote particularly, embodiments of the present invention may relate to a rescan method and apparatus that can monitor a specific slot during a rescan process.
2. Background of Related Art
Rescan is a process of a mobile terminal searching and obtaining a system having a highest priority in a current area. The mobile terminal may repeatedly and periodically rescan systems until the mobile terminal determines the system having the highest priority in the corresponding area. The rescan period may depend on mobile communication providers and may range from 1 to 3 minutes, for example.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing operations of a rescan algorithm of a mobile terminal according to an example arrangement. A standby state terminal may start a periodic rescan in order to confirm whether a system exists that has a higher priority than the current system (S10). After starting the rescan, the mobile terminal may decide whether the current system has the highest priority in the corresponding area (S20). If the current system is not the system having the highest priority, the mobile terminal may check whether other systems to be scanned exist on a scan list (S30).
If other systems to be scanned exist on the scan list, the mobile terminal may rescan a succeeding system (S40). When finishing the rescan, the mobile terminal may confirm whether a new system has been searched (S50). If the new system has been searched, the mobile terminal may decide whether the new system has a higher priority than the current system (S60). If the new system has a higher priority than the current system, the mobile terminal may obtain the system (S70) and end the rescan (S80).
The rescan algorithm may prevent low call reception and resulting power consumption by periodically updating the current system with a system having a higher priority. However, in the rescan algorithm, if many systems need to be scanned in the rescan process, a scan time may get longer than a slot cycle length. In this case, the mobile terminal may become asynchronous from the current system. As a result, the mobile terminal may not receive paging, connect calls and/or receive messages.